5 Million Minus 1

Visit my friend Natalie and JT's blog 5 Million Minus 1 and help them raise money for the adoption process!

New Sewing Machine For Me!

I've been saying forever (and forever, I mean about 5 years) that I want to try to sell crafts as an extra income. I finally took a big step yesterday and bought a sewing machine. I'm excited! I can't wait to start practicing and get to the point where what I invision in my head can be duplicated. Stay tuned! And get ready, because soon...there may even be a website!

Um, I invented Post-Its

Last week’s Bible Study centered around Philippians 2:14-15.
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life--in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.

Last night, we got together for our weekly recap and discussion. I feel like every week of this study has applied directly to me. Dang. I complain A LOT! I often speak before I think (or think through it enough to not get me in trouble). And more times than not, it’s something negative coming out of my mouth. This has become very evident to me in recent weeks.

I have a co-worker who likes to call me “Miss Pessimist” or various similar names. I always correct him, “I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist.” Either way you spin it, I’m definitely a complainer.

Last night, it seemed like we spent a fair portion of the evening trying to find a loophole in the scripture.
“But what if we’re venting?”
“It’s okay if you’re not talking about someone, right?”
“What if we don’t say it to someone else?”

It definitely says “Do EVERYTHING without complaining or arguing…”
EVERYTHING?
EVERYTHING!

Somewhere along the line of the discussion last night, I came up with a brilliant idea. Every time I open my mouth and complain, I’m going to write down what it is I’m complaining about on a post-it note. Then I’m going to counterbalance it with a prayer written out at the bottom. Next week, we’ll gather with our post-it notes and be able to visually see how much we’ve complained and what we spend our time complaining about. I challenge you to follow along and do the same. I’m hoping that over the course of the week it makes us become conscious of the words that are coming out of our mouths, and in return will cause us to complain less.

Texting Without a Phone

The things I would have texted you over the last few days if I'd been able:

• Anyone want to go to dinner?
• Wait...why is Martha Plimpton on Grey's Anatomy?
• I'm at your house. Where are you?!
• Hope your last day at work is going great!
• The girls at the table next to me at Panera are talking about how they only wash their hair every four or five days. Gross!
• I can help out Sunday if you need me to.
• The Batman signal is circling outside my condo. Seriously.

Instead, none of these ever got sent. :(

I'm hoping to get a new phone tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. I think I can make it 28 more hours. I've already made it 4 days. That's huge! It's like living 4 days without being able to use my fingers.

So Out Of Touch With the World...

I still don't have a phone. And it's making me realize just how much I really rely on that little thing and how addicted to it I've become.

I took it to the Apple store and the guy who helped me immediately knew it was water damaged by the pink stickers on the inside. So, he set me up an apppointment for Monday at 7. I guess I'm going to have to pay the $200 to get a new one. Because at this point, it's clear that I can't live without one.

I feel so out of touch with the world! I know it sounds like the most ridiculous thing ever, but I feel so sad without it. It's hard to make plans, hard to know what everyone else is doing. I can't just leave the house and make plans as I go. How were we operating before cell phones. I mean, I know it was possible. But it seems so hard to fathom now.

The things I've been missing out on. Facebook. Twitter. Shazam. Phone calls for no random reason. Phone calls to find out what's going on. Phone calls to tell someone I'm on my way. Phone calls. The internet. IMDB. Text messaging. The internet. Email. Facebook. Twitter. The internet. Phone calls. Text messaging. Picture texts. The internet. Okay, I think you get it. I pretty much use that phone for everything. It's my life line.

I miss it!!

The 46th Hour...

I decided to wait 46 hrs before I tried to plug the phone in. Last night, I could see some moisture in the camera lens of the phone. So I know that there was moisture that got in it. I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a Damp Rid sachet and put that in the ziplock bag with it. I was hoping it would pull the moisture out a little better than the rice.

I plugged it in at work this afternoon. The apple logo came on. Then continued to reset itself for the next 15 minutes. NOT GOOD! Finally, it acted like it was going to charge and went to the main screen. It was moving very slow and the apps were taking forever to load. It finally went to the screen telling me to sync it with itunes. But since I was at work, I couldn't really do anything about it. So when I packed up for the day and unplugged it, I realized it wasn't holding the charge and if it wasn't plugged in, it wasn't doing anything.

I went home and plugged it into the wall and it still wouldn't hold a charge. It wouldn't do anything once plugged into the computer at all.

I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow when I take it to the Apple Store to see what my options are. :(

The Things That Happen to Me...

Wednesday night, something horrible happened. It truly was a nightmare. I went to the gym, even though I still wasn't feeling great. I went and hopped on the treadmill with my iphone and towel, just like I've been doing for three nights a week. After about 15 mins, my heart rate was way out of control because of the meds the doc put me on. So I decided I wasn't quite ready to be back at the gym, so I went back to the locker room. I laid my phone on the toilet paper holder while I was going to blow my nose. And my iphone fell off and INTO the toilet. I don't think I've moved that quick in a really long time. But in about .2 seconds I had grabbed it out, completely wrapped it in toilet paper, and removed every water droplet from it. I tried to hold back my tears as I left the gym.

I'd heard of people "saving" their phones by putting them in a ziplock bag of rice, or ziplock back of damp rid or silicon packets. So I immediately stuck it in a full bag of rice. It kept turning itself off and on and it was making me incredibly nervous. I googled and read about a million articles and blogs about people who'd dropped their phones in water puddles, or the lake, or the swimming pool, and it ended up working out in their favor. So there was some hope in my heart that everything would be okay.


24 hours without the phone. HARD. I'm trying to decide how long to wait. Everything I've read says 24-48 hrs or longer. How are you supposed to know?

YAY for the Yaris!

So, I've been thinking a lot about getting a new car over the last few months. I absolutely loved having an SUV, but it's not really all that necessary for my life. Only having two doors isn't the most convenient for adults trying to climb in the backseat. The gas mileage is eating away my bank account. Champ was getting old, having lots of issues that needed to be fixed that were going to cost a lot of money. She had 157,000 miles...and she's a FORD! That's a CHAMP! I really wasn't looking forward to a car payment, but once I started researching, I realized that I could be saving over $100 a month just on gas alone.

I'd been trying to decide exactly what I wanted. At first, I wasn't totally convinced that the Toyota Yaris was for me, but I quickly fell in love with it. It was cute and little and the gas mileage alone was enough to convince me if was a good idea...I mean 30-35 mpg is over twice what I'm getting now!

Saturday, I was in Kentucky visiting the family. My stepdad wanted to go look for cars. I wasn't planning on doing anything for at least another month or so, but everything just seemed to work out perfectly. I was pre-approved for a loan, I found the car I liked, we made an offer, they accepted!

This will be my fourth vehicle, but it's definitely the newest! It's a 2008...only a year old. I'm super excited!

I will try to post more pics soon...if it ever stops raining!

Thrive Update

Yesterday morning, I had the option of doing a body composition analysis to see what had changed in the 3+ weeks since we started the program. I have had a couple people ask me if I've lost weight in the last couple days, but I don't think there's really a noticable change yet. I gave in and did the BCA because curiosity got the best of me. I wasn't sure if it was going to be motivating or depressing.

My results were actually very surprising. I lost 4 lbs in body fat mass and gained 3 lbs of lean muscle mass! Overall, I've only lost 2 lbs. But I'll take it. I really am not concerned about a number on the scale. I just really want to slim down and tone up. I think we'll do results again during the halfway point. At least it's motivation enough to want to continue! I can't wait to see end results!

Unpublished Posts

I just realized I had a bunch of posts from the last month that hadn't been published. Whoopsie! Well, they're up now.

Storms Are Rolling In

We are sitting in our hotel watching season 1 of Dawson's Creek. We went out to the beach this morning and the storm clouds came rolling in. We're hoping it will stop soon so we can get back out there. There's something so relaxing about storms at the beach.